TSaylor Sanchez (19) plays for Anselmo-Merna, one of Nebraska's many consolidated schools. He's shown in action with Sargent's Barry Morse (21). (Photo by Deb Hostick)
When you watch the Nebraska high school game results roll across your TV screen or your computer monitor, you’ll notice that hyphens and slashes in school names are becoming more predominant.
Anselmo-Merna. Exeter-Milligan. Bertrand/Loomis. Concordia/Douglas County West.
A declining population in most small towns throughout Nebraska has reduced the pool of student-athletes at many schools, making it harder to field competitive teams. With community identities so strongly tied to their local high school sports teams, this has been a hard pill to swallow in locations all over the state.
This leaves local school boards and their constituents in a quandary: is there a way to remain small enough to retain as much local control of the school as possible while growing large enough to be competitive in activities like sports and music? Cooperatives are Nebraska schools’ best answer thus far, and they are growing in number.
Elgin Public/Pope John. Harvard/Clay Center. Bloomfield/Wausa. Doniphan-Trumbull.
A cooperative is an official agreement between two or more schools, and sanctioned by the Nebraska Schools Activities Association, that enables them to share resources to field athletic teams and other activities like choirs or bands.
Cooperatives are distinct from consolidations, in that each of the schools involved maintains its separate identity, district and board of education. The growing number of team names linked by hyphens or slashes is on the rise, although many of them are adopting a completely new name to use
The first school cooperative venture was between Humphrey and Humphrey St. Francis, who shared their music program starting in 1981. Before that time, the only way that schools could cooperate was through consolidation. The first sports coop came in 1985, as far as the NSAA knows, according to NSAA office manager Margie Pinkerton.
Today, there are well over 100 sports and activities cooperatives in Nebraska high school sports. They are listed on a form which you can find buried deep within the NSAA Web site (www.nsaahome.org).
Wauneta-Palisade. Wood River/Shelton. Lindsay Holy Family/Newman Grove. Spalding/Spalding Academy.
Most cooperatives are between two or more public schools, but not always. When a public school and a parochial school get together, things become a bit dicier than you find in your standard sports cooperative.
Spalding, a community of about 550 people located in Greeley County in east central Nebraska, has a public school and a Catholic school. Still, Spalding High and Spalding Academy manage to work well with each other as a sports cooperative. The two schools followed a typical pattern – first combining their junior high teams about 10 years ago, then filing with the NSAA for a high school sports cooperative, complete with a new mascot. The two schools also share their music departments.
Spalding Academy athletic director Amy McKay said the lack of prayer at school events is an issue for some patrons of her school, but overall everyone seems satisfied with the religious climate at both schools. McKay said that is primarily because Spalding is “about 95 percent Catholic.” Some Spalding Public School students take part in a religious education class offered at night by Spalding Academy.
“Part of the reasoning behind (the cooperative) is to bring the community together,” said McKay. “To have two schools in a little town like this is pretty hard.
All the work of restructuring the way each school handles its sports program has been worth it when you see the benefits, McKay said.
“You do notice more friendships,” said McKay. “I don’t know how it would work in two separate towns, but with our town, it’s working well. It took awhile to get it going and get everybody’s jobs narrowed down. But it’s pretty much keeping our sports program alive. It’s just holding our numbers up.”
Financially, the sports cooperative is “probably about a wash,” she said. Spalding High is responsible for some events, Spalding Academy for others. Spalding Academy’s gymnasium is used for all home varsity basketball and volleyball. Practices and some junior high games are held in the community auditorium, which is rented by Spalding High. The schools share teachers for music and foreign language classes, which are held at Spalding Academy.
“We share duties,” McKay said. “The public school is responsible for certain things, and we are for others. In some ways it’s helped. Sometimes other schools are a little confused on who to call for what.”
Boone Central. Creighton/Verdigre. Greeley-Wolbach. Greeley-Wolbach/Cedar Rapids.
It can all get rather complicated. Just a few miles away from Spalding is Greeley, the county seat of Greeley County where, on a typical school day, there are children inside a school building that is part of a consolidated school district that includes the town of nearby Wolbach, with its districts merged under one board of education. Greeley-Wolbach also is part of a sports cooperative with Cedar Rapids High School – but not in every sport. In fact, the Greeley-Wolbach/Cedar Rapids sports cooperative is for wrestling only, and that cooperative expires next April. It can be renewed through the NSAA. This arrangement is typical for many schools. Were you wondering what athletic directors do with all their spare time? The paperwork can be laborious.
Some schools have gotten rid of the hyphens. Boone Central is a consolidated school located in Albion, which includes the old Petersburg school district. However, it’s a fact that Boone Central is involved in a sports cooperative with Spalding (not Spalding Academy, by the way) for softball only.
In case you’re curious, Cedar Rapids (the school that has a wrestling cooperative with Greeley-Wolbach) also has a sports cooperative with Boone Central, but only for cross country. The name for that cross country team is simply “Boone Central,” without any hyphens or slashes or new mascots. And this story virtually ignores sports cooperatives and consolidated schools who have given themselves generic directional names like North Central (a cooperative involving Rock County High in Bassett and Keya Paha County High in Springview), Southwest (a consolidated school in Bartley) and Southeast Consolidated (a consolidated school located in Stella).
But wait, there’s more for those of you who like those hyphens and slashes. Humboldt-Table Rock-Steinauer is a three-way consolidated school in southeast Nebraska which long ago realized its name is so long that it wisely abbreviates it to H-TR-S. It has joined in a venture whose official name is Humboldt-Table Rock-Steinauer/Pawnee City.
It’s a high school wrestling cooperative, not a law firm.
Eustis-Farnam. Sumner-Eddyville-Miller. Lincoln Christian/Lincoln Lutheran.
Eustis-Farnam is an example of a school that went from a cooperative to a consolidation. Both the Eustis Tigers and the Farnam Greenbacks had proud sports traditions, but when their numbers began to decline, they formed a cooperative for several sports early in the 1990s.
The first year, they combined their nicknames. Quickly, however, they decided that the “Tigers-Greenbacks” was a bit unwieldy, and they settled on a new mascot (the Knights) and new school colors. Within a decade, the school districts had voted to consolidate under one school board.
“Each town has their own pride still,” says Bobby Johnson, in his fourth year at E-F but his first year as activities director. “There is still some rivalry. But of course all their support goes toward the consolidated school.”
Since early in their co-op days, both Eustis and Farnam (located about 10 miles apart on Nebraska Highway 23) shared the privileges and responsibilities of hosting sports events. At first, the towns split the football games, but it was quickly decided to have Farnam take complete responsibility for football and give all basketball games to Eustis, which has a much larger and more modern gymnasium.
Volleyball matches are still split between the two towns. Farnam has volleyball standards and nets on hand, so the school doesn’t have to keep running equipment back and forth. If a football/volleyball doubleheader is scheduled, the volleyball match will be played in Farnam, so parents don’t have to travel 10 miles to watch the football game later that evening. If it’s a volleyball-only night, the event is held in Eustis.
“It definitely would be easier (using) just one facility,” said Johnson, “but I like seeing us still do things in Farnam because it’s the last tie that community has to the school.” The Farnam grade school was closed five years ago.
Eustis often would not be able to field a competitive sports team without getting students from Farnam, said Johnson. Eustis-Farnam currently is a Class D1 school, the state’s second-smallest classification for most sports.
“Neither school could exist without combining the two, considering our numbers right now,” said Johnson. “Our senior class has only 13 students. The biggest class is the juniors, with 28, but every other class on down to kindergarten is less than 20. “Once this junior class graduates, we’ll probably drop down to D2.”
In fact, the tiny northern Nebraska school district of Niobrara found out what happens if you get caught without setting up a sports cooperative in time. It had to cancel its 2009 football season when fewer than 12 boys decided to go out for the sport. They will practice all fall and try to get into a co-op for the 2010 season.
Laurel-Concord/Coleridge. Fillmore Central/Exeter-Milligan. Stapleton/McPherson County.
In Nebraska’s Sand Hills, the Stapleton Broncos and McPherson County Longhorns are trying a sports cooperative for the first time. They’ve formed the Stapleton/McPherson County Cyclones for all sports except wrestling, which McPherson County High (located in Tryon) will be launching on its own this winter.
Dan Hutchison, superintendent at Stapleton, said the new co-op will allow the schools to play junior varsity games, which nearly had become a thing of the past. “McPherson County might not have been able to field some teams without the coop,” he said. “I think it’s a good situation for both schools.”
Although there are challenges involving facilities and venues, as there were at Eustis-Farnam, both Stapleton and Tryon appear to have bought into the idea with very little bickering.
“It’s been good so far,” said Hutchison. “You always have a few people who are opposed to any kind of change, but we had town meetings to start with, and so did Tryon. I would say generally a large majority supported it.
“You actually save some money splitting the coaching costs. Most people think it’s going to be more expensive, but it isn’t. Splitting the coaching more than makes up for your travel and transportation costs.”
Alan Miller, the athletic director at McPherson County, said things look good from his school’s perspective.
“It’s gone much better than I anticipated,” he said. “I’m coaching the girls’ volleyball team. They have blended together so well that it’s almost scary, the relationship between the girls is so good.
“Right when we decided last winter to do this, we were at a conference tournament,” said Miller. “(Stapleton) played ahead of us. Our people got in with the Stapleton people and cheered for them, and then their people stayed around and cheered for us. That was a good start, showing that there was going to be some commitment from the communities. There are always some naysayers, but it showed that people are going to support the co-op and that it’s a good idea.”
Boys from Tryon will be able move up to 8-man football from the 6-man variety.
“We had young kids playing against seniors a lot,” said Miller. “Now these kids are going to have an opportunity to have some success against kids their own size instead of getting thrown into varsity competition right off.”
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